A Wirral dad is turning over £20m with his “Vinted-like” business, which has grown from a start-up launched in 2022 into a nationwide operation. Daniel Owen, from Bebington, founded The Car Contact in October 2022 and has since built the business into a major supplier of cars and vans to dealerships across the UK.
From chauffeur to car trade
The 31-year-old entered the motor trade in his early 20s, spending six years working his way up the industry. He began his career at a car auction before becoming an area manager in Ireland, and was later headhunted by a Volkswagen dealership to set up a trade outlet.
Although he enjoyed the various roles, Daniel said he was determined to branch out on his own eventually. Speaking to the ECHO, he said: "To be honest, I didn’t have a massive interest in cars years ago. It was something that I sort of fell into. I used to be a personal chauffeur, strangely enough, and I did that for about four years."
He added: "Then I ended up going to a recruitment interview. I was offered the job at a recruitment company and actually turned it down, where they then said, ‘Would you like to go and work for a car auction?’ From there, I got headhunted to go and work at Volkswagen for a dealership in the Midlands and set up their basically trade/disposal side."
Setting up his own company
Daniel said: "I set that up, and I said to them, ‘Look, I’ll give you guys two years in this job, but then I’m going to go and start my own thing'. When it got to about a year and a half in that job, I started to set everything up, and I knew I was sort of ready to go off and start my own company."
Daniel and his team of seven are remarketers for cars, or as he tells his family and friends, they are the "middleman of buying cars for lease and rental companies".
Award win and expansion plans
This year, the company reached new heights after Daniel’s wife, Amara, put him forward for easyJet’s UK Young Entrepreneur of the Year award and, in doing so, won £150,000 from founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou. The billionaire rang Daniel from his yacht in Monaco just days into Daniel's first days as a dad.
Daniel said: "It was literally while Amara was pregnant. that she put me forward for the award. I’ll be completely honest, I knew we were doing well as a company, but I didn’t think we’d just go and win it. Obviously, we had other things on our minds with having a baby, so it was a crazy experience. I found out on Mother’s Day via an e-mail that I’d won, so it was an amazing Mother’s Day for many reasons."
Now, thanks to the extra funds, the team are currently in the midst of buying a 100-car site in North Wales. Daniel said: "We’ve got a young, hungry team. Everyone on the team is absolutely lovely and an amazing worker, and I couldn’t wish for a better team, to be honest. Once we have the new site approved, which could be in the next month or so, that just means we can push on even further and continue to grow."
